Dear Carolyn,
 
My questions were not rhetorical. I think an author may know that, even after he shall long be dead, certain tricks played by him on the reader will continue to puzzle them ( Nabokov blended tricks and serious comments in a tricky way).  It is my opinion, too, that sometimes we fail to attribute to one character the attributes of another, like "Gradus and Kinbote" perhaps, a failure of "discernment" ( here I made a word play with "kernel" ). 

I was surprised at the "knackt" in German for "craking" a nut being so similar to Kinbote's "knackle of walnuts": probably a play with overdetermined knots of words we sometimes lack the knack to discover? 
 
Jansy  
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: Carolyn Kunin
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Wednesday, August 23, 2006 2:17 PM
Subject: [NABOKV-L] Walnuts, kernels and strokes


In the end, what do we get besides learning that the dead like to play tricks on the living? Or that sometimes we discern one kernel where two should have been found?
Jansy



Dear Jansy,

I'm afraid I don't understand your question. But it seems a rhetorical one.

At any rate, I don't wish to comment on the "Vane Sisters" story (I dislike it) except to say that the original Sybil Vane bears a great resemblance to Iris Acht. She is to be found in The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, which along with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (the only story I know that   actually begins with a kinbote) is well worth reading in conjunction with Pale Fire.

Carolyn

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